It's Tuesday, September 11, 2012....

On Tuesdays I usually don't go to work until 9:00.  So it's my morning to be a little lazy, enjoy my coffee a little more slowly, and look out my back patio doors to see the progress of the seasons affecting my garden and its surroundings.

This particular Tuesday we were out of cream for my coffee.  My husband, being the devoted man that he is, ran out to the store to get some.  He doesn't drink coffee.  Sometimes I think I really don't deserve him.  He bought me the laptop from which I am typing this blog.  It's a new thing for me - typing my thoughts out into the cyber universe.  I'd much rather sit down and pour out a good conversation face to face.  But apparently I'm going to be the author of a book or a screenplay someday.  That is the dream my husband and I share just before drifting off to sleep at night.  A large sum of money and we'd pay off our debts, secure our families, and dust off our traveling shoes for a few months....years even maybe.  Who knows?

Autumn is a tough time for me emotionally.  I think it must be for many people.  Parents are sending kids back to school, or to school for the first time, or to college for the first time.  Farmers are watching their crops dry up and get cut down.  Early risers don't get to see the sun at 5:00am anymore and those late night summer outdoor parties are just another thing of the past.  Autumn seems full of goodbyes.  Friends parting ways, and taking steps in different directions, never sure whether they might cross paths again.

This is the time of yea when we hearty people of the Midwest start to rake leaves, till under gardens, burn dead branches, pack away the patio furniture and make a path to the snow-blower.  We know what awaits us in a few short months.

Autumn always seems to conjure memories of the fall days at college.  Moving in, meeting my fellow residents, tacking up my photos from last year on the cork board above my desk, reuniting with old friends, and knowing that some friends were off studying overseas, or even back at home no longer pursuing a degree.

This day, this Tuesday 11 years ago, at nearly this exact hour, we had already been in classes for a week.  I had just started my sophomore year.  I was a Resident Assistant in an all-girls dormitory on the third floor.  I was up and preparing to leave for my first class of the morning.  At that point I wouldn't say I had as much appreciation for the morning as I do now.  I would give anything to be heading to class every morning now instead of heading to work.  (A subject for another blog no doubt)  That morning I can't remember whether or not I had coffee, or even breakfast, but I do remember watching the morning news and seeing the World Trade Center Tower billowing smoke from one of the upper floors.

Many people over the years have given their accounts of that morning and how they felt.  In fact, my Facebook newsfeed right now is full of September 11 references.  For we lucky individuals fortunate enough to not know someone who was directly affected by those attacks, we are collectively thankful and humble in our remembrance of what others had to endure that day.

I can remember for certain that I watched live as the second plane slammed into the second tower (not knowing at the time if it was the North or South tower).  I can remember for certain watching, again live, as the towers crumbled into dust and fell to the ground.  I remember watching the plane hit the tower on my TV in my dorm.  I watched the towers hit the ground on the TV that the college had placed in the campus cafeteria building.  I was in a crowd of on-lookers who made a collective gasp as they watched the pieces come to the earth, knowing that people were still inside.  Knowing what it meant was happening to those people.  And knowing that they were here, in Wisconsin, far away from it all.

Eleven years later and you would think those collective emotions from that morning might still have healing power.  Power to unite.  Eleven years later and we are in the middle of one of the most brutal (and in my opinion embarrassing) presidential elections this country has seen.  Eleven years later and the phrase "September 11th" when said aloud brings a very sharp image to most people's minds.  It's no longer just a date, it's an historic event.  Eleven years later and politicians still use the date to ignite a crowd.  I wonder if that happened much with Pearl Harbor still in 1952?  For some reason I don't think so.

How trying it must be on a nation to not be able to let go.  The most common slogan attached to September 11, 2001 is "Never Forget."  Personally I don't see how that would ever be possible.  But I wonder sometimes if that phrase doesn't make it just a little challenging for us to let go.